CMP Board Member Detained in Australia Over Ties to Violent Extremism

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New York, NY — Center for Medical Progress co-founder and board member, Troy Newman,was detained by Australian officials today after his visa to visit the country was cancelled over his ties to violent anti-abortion extremism.

Quote from Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America:

“Troy Newman is one of the godfathers of this discredited smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, and Australian officials are actually blocking him from entering their country because of his ties to violent extremism. For anyone who wonders just how extreme the people behind this fraudulent smear campaign are, Australia has your answer. Newman and the other people behind these attacks on Planned Parenthood are part of a network of extremists who are obsessed with Planned Parenthood, and who have shown they’ll do anything to try to block women’s access to safe, legal abortion.”

In a recent FOX News special, Center for Medical Progress board member Troy Newman took credit (3:50) for helping to create the sting operation and subsequent smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, saying:

“I can't walk into a Planned Parenthood. I’ve been in the pro-life movement for over 25 years. They’ve — will surely recognize me. But here’s this young, very bright, very courageous, very faithful young man mapping out this idea, and so we hit it off very, very well and we began discussing all the various techniques that he would have to use in order to infiltrate Planned Parenthood.”

Newman’s ties to violent extremism have dogged him for years. A member of Operation Rescue is responsible for murdering Dr. George Tiller in his church, which occurred after the group spent years harassing him. The current spokeswoman for Newman’s group Operation Rescue,Cheryl Sullenger, who has been commenting to the media on Newman’s detention, served two years in prison for attempting to bomb a women’s health center that provided abortions. Newman has defended multiple other extremists and called the murder of an abortion clinic doctor a“justifiable defensive action.”

Newman’s visa was cancelled after Australian politicians had expressed concern that Newman’s visit could incite violence, citing a book that Newman helped write — Their Blood Cries Out — which included a passage that reads, “the United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people.” An Australian member of parliament has been quoted in multiple outlets as stating: "This type of extremism may fly in the US, but not here in Australia".

BACKGROUND: CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS FOUNDER TROY NEWMAN AND A HISTORY OF TIES TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM

“The reality is that the Center for Medical Progress is a flimsy front set up by three anti-abortion extremists, one of whom has ties to violent radicals — including the man convicted of murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.”

“Two other men appear on the forms as well — Albin Rhomberg is listed as chief financial officer, and Troy Newman is listed as the group's secretary. Both Newman and Rhomberg have a well-documented history of violent, virulent anti-abortion extremism.

“[CMP board member Troy Newman is also] the president of Operation Rescue, a pro-life group that ran the multi-decade harassment campaign of Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas, a campaign that only ended when Scott Roeder, who was an active part of Operation Rescue activities in Wichita, murdered Tiller in his church in 2009.”

“More recently, in 2012, Newman blamed the murder of Tiller… on Wichita district attorney Nola Foulston… ’If Nola Foulston had done her job with George Tiller, he would still be alive today,’Newman told the AP.”

“Daleiden’s fellow board members at the CMP: Albin Rhomberg and Troy Newman. Rhomberg has a long and strident history of anti-abortion activism — one California Planned Parenthood worker says that he once followed her ‘for an entire city block, barely 3 feet away, filming and shouting at me about my evil work with Planned Parenthood ’— but it is Newman’s association with the CMP that has raised the most eyebrows.”

“Newman is the president of Operation Rescue, a pro-life organization that became the center of national media attention when George Tiller, a Kansas physician who provided late-term abortions, was assassinated by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder in 2009 during worship services at Tiller’s church.”

“When Roeder was arrested, however, policefound the phone number of Operation Rescue senior policy adviser Cheryl Sullenger on the dashboard of his car. Sullenger, who had spent two years in federal prison from 1988 to 1990 after pleading guilty toplotting the bombing of a San Diego abortion provider, admitted that she had been in contact with Roeder in the past and had provided some information to him about Tiller’s whereabouts, information unrelated to the eventual shooting.”

“The individuals registered as a board members for the Center for Medical Progress include Troy Newman — the head of the infamous group Operation Rescue, which mounted a years-long campaign to take down Dr. George Tiller.”

“‘There’s a direct connection between [Operation Rescue], the Center for Medical Progress, and some of the worst characters in the anti-abortion extremist movement,’ [law professor David Cohen, who recently published a book detailing the violence and harassment leveled against abortion providers] said.”

“In 2003, Newman issued a press release attacking ‘judicial tyranny’ in the prosecution of Paul Hill, who murdered an abortion doctor and his bodyguard in Florida, and arguing that Hill, who was executed the same day, should have been able to present a defense of ‘justifiable defensive action.’ A 2004 Los Angeles Times story described Newman shadowing clinic workers and seeking ‘not just to make their lives uncomfortable’ but also to ‘disgust their friends and associates.’”

“Operation Rescue’s second most important officer, Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger, has her own radical history. In 1988, she was convicted of conspiring to bomb a San Diego abortion clinic and sentenced to three years in federal prison. The indictment said that Sullenger provided gunpowder and other material for the bomb and gave a wig to the man who actually planted it, according to The Los Angeles Times.”

“David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and the author of a new book on anti-abortion terrorism, told ThinkProgress that CMP’s ties are telling. ‘There’s a direct connection between [Operation Rescue], the Center for Medical Progress and some of the worst characters in the anti-abortion extremist movement,’ he said.”

“And while Newman is careful to publicly reject violence against abortion providers, he was not above rejoicing at an Arkansas provider’s death from leukemia in 2010,declaring, ‘In the end, God always gets the last word.’ In 2003, Newmanargued that a man sentenced to death for killing an abortion provider should have been allowed to argue that his crime was ‘a justifiable defensive action.’ Newman alsoruns AbortionDocs.org, a website thatlists photographs of and personal information about abortion providers.”

“As Daleiden completed his project, he enlisted some of the heaviest-hitters in the anti-choice movement for legal help. Americans United for Life, the powerful anti-choice legal group, told The Hill newspaper that it had been providing unspecified ‘advice’ to the Center for Medical Progress for several months before the first video was released, and Sullenger told an interviewer that the conservative legal behemoth Alliance Defending Freedom was also providing legal representation to the group.”

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